It is not the name of the land. It was obtained by maltmen who turned over barley with wooden shovels in floor malting. The resulting strain injury could leave one arm hanging lower, a condition nicknamed monkey shoulder.
Scottish whisky names usually come from landforms such as valleys or estuaries. Names that come from a human body are rare.
The labour behind the name has not vanished entirely. At Balvenie, maltmen still turn barley by hand on the malting floor. The condition that gave the whisky its name came from that repetitive work.
The early recipe was widely described as using Glenfiddich for a light, pear-like foundation.
Balvenie contributes a rounder, sweeter malt character and a little more body.
Kininvie, established on the Balvenie site in 1990, has rarely appeared as a single malt and is closely associated with blending stock.
It combines malt whiskies from more than one distillery: neither a single malt nor a standard blended Scotch of malt and grain.
After blending, the whisky spends additional time together in marrying vessels so its components settle into a more integrated whole.
Monkey Shoulder was designed with bartenders in mind: approachable neat, but sturdy enough for an Old Fashioned or Whisky Sour.
Based on Monkey Shoulder.
The shape spreads low across the two lower axes. Malt forms one side; on the shared floral-and-vanilla axis, this whisky reads more as honey and vanilla than as overt flowers. Sherry and peat remain restrained.
The reason the radar is not biased to one side is Aberlour. It's similar, but the reason is different. Aberlour leaves various aromas through slow distillation, while Monkey Shoulder mixes malts with different characteristics to achieve balance.
This is why this low and wide shape holds up in cocktails. Neither axis bounces, so it doesn't push out other ingredients.
Glenfiddich, Balvenie and Kininvie, known to be of early composition, are all located in Dufftown and owned by the same family. Glenfiddich and Balvenie are separated by a railway line, and Kininvie is behind Balvenie.
It is known that the batch 27 on the label refers to the number of casks in one batch, not the serial number. The three brass monkeys on the bottle also represent the three distilleries.
However, the exact formulation is not being disclosed at this time. There are explanations that it was initially introduced from three places, but later other Speyside malts were mixed. The three branches depicted on this page are widely known configurations and are not a confirmed record of current formulations.